Let brotherly love continue.
Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.
Remember them that are in bonds, as bound with them; and them which suffer adversity, as being yourselves also in the body.
Hebrews 13: 1-3
In a Dec. 20 letter written by Gov. Greg Abbott to President Joe Biden denouncing the latter’s border policies, Abbott warned the president that “your inaction to secure the southern border is putting the lives of migrants at risk.” Abbott goes on to write, “Your policies will leave many people in the bitter, dangerous cold as a polar vortex moves into Texas.”
Forgive us for questioning the governor’s concern about the exposure of migrants to frigid weather when two days after writing that letter, Abbott filled three buses with migrants to send them to a clime much colder than the Texas southern border. He sent them to Washington, D.C., where it was the coldest it had been in three decades — a once-a-generation cold with record-setting readings about 25 degrees below average — the coldest Washington has been this early in the winter since it hit 5 on Dec. 22, 1989.
On Christmas Eve, the time on which the foundation of the Christian faith professed by Abbott is built, these migrants — who are seeking asylum — were left on a Washington street without adequate clothing to protect them from temperatures in the teens.
On Christmas Day, Abbott celebratorily tweeted Scripture: “For today in the city of David a Savior has been born for you who is Messiah and Lord.” Luke 2:11
Abbott continued, “May the hopeful promise of our Savior’s birth bring comfort & joy to you and your family. Merry Christmas, Texas!”
Had the governor continued reading his Bible, he’d have seen, just three verses down, Luke 2:14, which proclaims, “Glory to God in the highest, And on earth peace, goodwill toward men!”
Political gamesmanship, and not peace and goodwill toward men, women and children is what Abbott was demonstrating when ferrying them as Christmas surprise deliveries to Vice President Kamala Harris’ residence on the grounds of the U.S. Naval Observatory.
At no time did Abbott appear to imagine the discomfort and fear of ill-clad strangers in a strange and subfreezing land being left in the streets to fend for themselves. It took people with greater moral imaginations than the governor of Texas to care for the approximately 140 travelers.
Volunteers from Migrant Solidarity Mutual Aid Network, a grassroots organization in D.C., provided warm clothing, food and shelter.
Beginning in April, Abbott has bused nearly 16,000 migrants to D.C., New York City, Chicago and Philadelphia, all cities with Democratic mayors. We know those numbers because Abbott proudly tweeted them on Christmas Day in response to criticism of his Christmas Eve delivery.
While we deplore his use of human beings as collateral for his political ambitions, our Editorial Board has supported Abbott’s busing of migrants because it provides migrants free tickets toward their destinations and it articulates the need for border reform.
But these are human beings, and treating them with dignity and care while also doing more to secure the border — a failure of both Democrats and Republicans — shouldn’t be relegated to a contest between governors like Abbott and Florida’s Ron DeSantis to show who’s more outrageous in conflating “being tough” with cruelty.
On the day celebrating his savior’s birth, Abbott wasn’t thinking about what his savior said in Luke 9:47-48: “Whosoever shall receive this child in my name receiveth me: and whosoever shall receive me receiveth him that sent me: for he that is least among you all, the same shall be great.”
If not with a warm heart, couldn’t Abbott have, at least, received them with gifts of warm clothing and blankets before sending them deeper into the “bitter, dangerous cold” of the Arctic mega-front?
The essence of Jesus’ message — the Christ in Christmas — are the gifts of love, grace and mercy. None of those gifts were present in Abbott’s decision to abandon migrants to the freezing Washington streets on Christmas Eve.
San Antonio Express-News
